In this photo, you can see the two Sandhill Crane parents and their two offspring. Betsy has Sandhill families such as this in her yard almost every spring. It is quite the soap opera to watch every day, hoping they survive. Many years they don't.Sandhill Cranes are very family oriented and very protective and do best together. One year, (2001) when I worked at Pelican Man's Bird Sanctuary helping raise hundreds of abandoned/injured song bird babies, we had a young Sandhill that had been orphaned. It lived in the hospital, and we called it Cricket, because of the little chirping sound it made. It seemed to not be interested in leaving the Sanctuary, even when it could easily fly away. But in September, a few days after 9/11, Tropical Storm Gabrielle was out in the Gulf. No one was too concerned. A few days before, Cricket took off. We assumed she was gone for good. After the storm, she came back! She was just very in touch with her instincts, even in spite of being raised "in captivity". She sensed the storm, fled to safety, and returned when it was all over! In retrospect we all wished we had paid more attention to her departure; we wouldn't have been so caught off guard by the storm.
Photo copyright 2010 Betsy Marx
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